May – Sam spent weeks in New York, catching up on his letters to the Alta California. He gathered information from a variety of sources on subjects of interest to Alta readers. He compiled information on the popularity of California wines in the East, on New York weather, on the better hotels. He visited the Blind Asylum, the Midnight Mission, which tried to help prostitutes, the Five Points slums, and the Bible House. At the Bible House Sam introduced himself to Herman Dyer, doctor of divinity, and told him about the good work and influence that Rev. Franklin S.

April 30 or May 1 Wednesday – After several delays, Webb published The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Other Sketches [Hirst, “A Note on the Text,” Oxford edition 1996].

April 29 Monday – Sam’s Jumping Frog book sold out of its first printing by this date. Charles Webb never disclosed the sell-outs and sales figures to Sam and never paid royalties even though the book was in print through 1870 [Slotta 20]. (See Dec. 22, 1870 entry. Also A.D. notes AMT 2: 487 showing 4,076 books printed.)

April 27 Saturday – Sam wrote from New York to Charles Warren Stoddard, returning his autograph book and discussing poetry [MTL 2: 35-8].

April 23 Tuesday – Sam wrote from New York to Charles Warren Stoddard (1843-1909), a California poet he’d met in San Francisco in 1864 or 5 while both were writing for the Californian. Stoddard had written Sam announcing a book of poetry to be published [MTL 2: 29-30&n1]. New York papers started announcing Sam’s upcoming debut lecture in the City—Great Hall of the Peter Cooper Institute at Astor Place. The hall seated 2,000 [Powers, MT A Life 189].

April 22 Monday – Sam wrote a humorous response to Malcom Townsend (b.1847), an autograph seeker, starting “of long habit” to write an I.O.U. [MTL 2: 28]. See source note 1 for more on Townsend.

James Warren Nye wrote from Wash. DC to Sam, pleased to hear that Twain would repeat his lecture on the Sandwich Islands in NYC. Nye had been at the SF performance. “A larger or more intelligent audience than was present on that occasion I have rarely seen” He hoped it would be so rec’d in NYC [MTP].

April 21 Sunday – The Polar Star Masonic Lodge Number Seventy-nine of St. Louis duly reinstated Sam to their order [Jones 365]. Sam’s article “Official Physic” ran in the New York Mercury [Camfield bibliog.].

April 19–22 Monday – Sam walked into Frank Fuller’s office at 57 Broadway and sought his help to hire the largest hall possible for a lecture. Fuller offered to help, and devised means of advertising; called up a meeting of all Pacific Coast persons in town at the Metropolitan Hotel, and became Sam’s instant promoter. Since Sam wrote nothing of the effort in his Apr. 19 letter home, and the newspapers began announcing the upcoming lecture at Cooper Institute on Apr. 23, the meeting with Fuller and the gathering at the Metropolitan Hotel must have occurred during this period [Lorch 61-2].

April 19 Friday – Sam wrote from New York to Jane Clemens, his mother and family in St. Louis. Direct my letters to this hotel [Westminster] in future. I am just fixed, now. It is the gem of all hotels. I have never come across one so perfectly elegant in all its appointments & so sumptuously & tastefully furnished. Full of “bloated aristocrats” too, & I’m just one of them kind myself—& so is Beck Jolly. The book will issue the 25. James Russell Lowell [1819-1891] says the Jumping Frog is the finest piece of humorous writing ever produced in America [MTL 2: 27-28].

April 15 Monday – Sam wrote from New York to Jane Clemens, his mother and family in St. Louis. Sam discovered he didn’t have to rush back to New York because an agent for the Alta had been there and took care of the passage for Sam by this deadline date. He wrote his mother to send letters to the Metropolitan Hotel. He also had seen the steamer Quaker City: “She is a right stately-looking vessel” [MTL 2: 23].